You can open a joint demat account but the one who holds the trading account should be the first name on the demat account. Here’s how to open a demat account.

When it comes to demat accounts, there are two terms that you need to understand – depositories and depository participants (DPs). There are two depositories that are SEBI-registered – the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) and the Central Depository Services Limited (CDSL). These depositories hold your electronic securities and allow you to make transactions.

The depository participants are the middle-men (or agents) that work between you, as an investor, and the depository. You’ll need to open an account with the DP (which is actually the demat account) in order to avail the facilities offered by the depositories.

Choose a depository participant (A depository participant can be a financial organisation like banks, brokers, financial institutions, custodians, etc., acting as an agent of the depository to make its services available to the investors)

Fill up the account opening form provided and submit the necessary documents.

The depository participant will conduct in-person verification

Once verified, the DP will provide you the unique account number or ID. You can use this to access your online demat account

Do not forget to add a beneficiary when opening a demat account. Usually, it takes a week or two to open a demat account. However, the advantage about opening demat accounts is that you can open multiple accounts with different DPs and there is no minimum share balance required to open one.

Demat account might take sometime to get set-up. You don’t need one to invest in Mutual Funds. Click here to explore Mutual Funds.